The present invention generally relates to eyeglass frames and more particularly, to a nose pad assembly suitable for use in an eyeglass frame with multifocal lenses.
Various attempts have been made to raise or lower bifocal or other multifocal eyeglass lenses before the eyes of a wearer so that two or more different focal fields of the lenses can be moved into and out of the desired position of use.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,691,796 issued to Negishi discloses en eyeglass frame with bifocal lenses. A pair of separate nose pads are slidably mounted to a corresponding pair of pad arms of the eyeglass frame and include respective guide grooves. Upper and lower fixed magnets are mounted in the upper and lower ends of the nose pads. A pair of slides are slidably moved along the respective guide grooves and include slide magnets. The slides magnets are selectively attached to the upper and lower magnets to securely hold the eyeglass frame in its upper and lower positions. In such an arrangement, one of the slide magnets is, sometimes, accidentally kept in magnetic contact with the lower magnet when the eyeglass frame is lifted from its lower position to place the reading segment of the bifocal lenses before the eyes of a wearer. If this occurs, a corresponding one of the nose pads is undesirably displaced upwardly along the nose of the wearer. Also, undue friction which may be produced when one of the slides is moved along the guide groove results in undesirable displacement of the nose pad. In Negishi patent, a pad bridge is employed to connect the nose pads together. The pad bridge is vertically arcuate and is in the form of a string with a circular section. Such a string-like bridge can not securely hold the nose pads on the nose of the wearer as it is not capable of resisting a vertical force which may be developed when the eyeglass frame is moved in a vertical direction.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a nose pad assembly which can securely hold a pair of nose pads on the nose of a wearer when an eyeglass frame is moved in a vertical direction and allows the nose pads to be freely adjusted to any desired position during fitting of the eyeglass frame.